Law & Apple: Steve Jobs Ruins Apple's Position in Lawsuit

When Tim Cook led the big Apple Event last month announcing the new iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s, a lot of comparisons to his predecessor were made. Almost universally, it was declared once again that Tim Cook lacks whatever magic Steve Jobs had on stage. However, perhaps Tim Cook will do a better job of not breaking future patents with his lack of stagecraft; sometimes the ability to project a powerful "reality distortion field" has unintended consequences.

Apple vs. Samsung

In 2007, when Jobs got up on stage to unveil the first iPhone, how could he know that one of the funniest lines he delivered would completely derail a patent case six years later? Well, he should have, or at least the Cupertino legal team should have before they approved the slides for the presentation, because U.S. patent law is very different from the rest of the world — as Apple was just reminded the hard way.

Last Thursday, Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents reported that the Federal Patent Court of Germany ruled for Samsung and Motorola (Google) by declaring a key Apple iPhone patent invalid. The patent, EP2059868, covering a "portable electronic device for photo management", is part of the "rubber banding" patents that Apple has been using so effectively in the Patent Wars.

So why did the German court invalidate the patent? Because Jobs went for the cheap laughs during the original iPhone unveiling and joked that Apple had already extensively patented the iPhone, when it hadn't yet. And that was fine in the U.S., where Apple had 12 months to file patents after the public announcement; in Europe, however, patents are treated very differently.

U.S. patent law has traditionally favored the "first to invent," while Europe has traditionally favored the "first to file." A detailed breakdown of the difference can be read here, but the short answer is that in the U.S., if you could prove that you invented something first, you won in court, while in Europe, if you filed the patent first, you won in court. With the American Invents Act that was passed this past March, the U.S. has also switched to more of a "first to file" system, but when Jobs was on stage in 2007 he had every reason to believe the iPhone patents were protected so long as they were filed within 12 months of the presentation. And he was right — in the U.S.

In Europe, however, as Mueller points out, "even an inventor's own public demos could always be held against his own patents if they took place before the filing of an application." Jobs' presentation became prior art to the court in Europe; Apple could not claim a valid patent because they introduced the technology to the public without a patent in place. Perhaps the Apple lawyers forgot about this detail, or perhaps Jobs didn't care and wanted to use the line anyway; we'll likely never know. However, the lawyers for Samsung and Motorola remembered this detail, and used it to win the day last week, taking away a major Cupertino weapon.

You've got to admit...this one is kind of sweet.

Apple has still many other perfectly valid patents in play in this case, and is likely to prevail in this case. But this one has to sting a little bit, and also helps to put into perspective that being a little more subdued and professional is probably a better long-term strategy.

Those who love Apple all miss the genius and energy of Steve Jobs, but you'd be really surprised to see this kind of mistake happen under Tim Cook's watch.